vista: Windows cannot connect to the printer. Access is denied

11 Responses to “vista: Windows cannot connect to the printer. Access is denied”

1. Trish Harrington says:
   

   I am on XP in a Windows Server 2003 network – I’m trying to give everyone access to a desktop printer and get “Windows cannot connect to the printer. Either the printer name was typed incorrectly, or the specified printer has lost its connection to the server”

   I can see the printer – and get to via browse from the printer setup page. I tried connecting using \\computer\printer, but no go.

   Any ideas?

   April 14th, 2007 at 22:22
2. Computer Help says:
   

   Hi Trish.

   Either the server 2003 has domain settings that are blocking the printer access, or its just a timing issue.

   By timing, I mean if you leave it for a few hours, it just happens to fix itself.

   if you can browse to it, then you should be able to right-click on it and set it up on another PC…

   Given the limited info you provided, I can’t be more specific.

   April 22nd, 2007 at 19:54
3. John Halldorson says:
   

   Thanks,
   It Fixed my problem.
   John

   April 25th, 2007 at 12:52
4. Christian says:
   

   Thank you, thank you, thank you! This worked perfectly!

   October 17th, 2007 at 7:56
5. mergisius says:
   

   You saved me a lot of brains and time. Thank you!!

   January 4th, 2008 at 3:39
6. Steve Richardson says:
   

   Thanks, I was about to pull what hair I have left before I found your solution

   January 27th, 2008 at 10:20
7. Michael says:
   

   Trigger: When attempt to add a printer the directory you receive the below message.
   Error: Windows cannot connect to the printer. Either the printer name was typed incorrectly, or the specified printer has lost its connection to the server.
   Hey,
   Hope this makes sense. We were having the same issue and the resolution I found was to create a subnet under Active Directory Sites and Services matching our topology then I associated with our site. Ours was simple enough we only have one subnet for our entire network. This changes can be made live it didn’t affect anything from what I could tell. It did take a while for the info to replicate before the clients could transcend the AD topology.
   You can find a helpful link here at expert’s exchange
   http://www.experts-exchange.com/Hardware/Peripherals/Printers_Scanners/Q_22603791.html#a19207617
   The other thing I did was to edit the local policy on our one printer server it hosts about (20printers). The change made was enabling the “Check published state” and setting it to check at 1hr intervals. You can get to the local policy by:
   Go to run type “gpedit.msc”
   Under Computer Configuration expand Administrative Templates
   Then explain Printers and enable the policy “Check published state”.

   The problem I think we had is our printers are on the 192.168.0 subnet and the workstations are on 192.168.1 I’m not sure when it broke but this fixed it for us. I believe client machines use the AD sites and subnets to navigate to the printer via the right subnet. Which is outside of DNS which is why we could add the printer any other way i.e. \\servername\printer or \\xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx\printer out side of AD.
   Hope this helps!
   Thanks,
   Michael
   “Freely you have received, freely give.”

   February 29th, 2008 at 5:42
8. Dan says:
   

   I had the exact same error message as Michael but for a different reason.

   Quote: Trigger: When attempt to add a printer the directory you receive the below message.
   Error: Windows cannot connect to the printer. Either the printer name was typed incorrectly, or the specified printer has lost its connection to the server.

   It turned out that the problem was that the server wasnt resolving properly as it was set up in the DNS system with a different suffix from that of the AD suffix! Stupid really, but that’s the problem with having a network full of boxes that are not all migrated to AD and using a DNS system other than Microsoft.

   Hope this helps others that are unlucky enough to have these same symptoms.
   

   June 7th, 2008 at 2:16
9. mocko says:
   

   Coo, I’ve been bashing my head against a wall for ages over this and your solution worked perfectly. Thanks!

   July 17th, 2008 at 9:11
10. nelson says:
    

    I have a Hp lj printer that is on a print server (MS Server 2003), it is connected via a local port (IP) it does work but when some one tries to map to it it gives me access denied. The security options are set to full access but still cannot map to the printer . Help!!!!

    November 5th, 2008 at 2:22
11. Mark says:
    

    Thank you so much!! I was spending most of the night trying to get my new laptop to connect to my network Minolta Di351f! I just printed my test page, and am ready to rock and roll! I’ll be sure to donate asa I get my next paycheck!!

    October 6th, 2009 at 11:29

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